Holiday Memories

 by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

In 2020, when the whole world seemed to pause, the annual Elmira Downtown Holiday parade was canceled. Without a parade, CCHS shared 170 images from our collection for a virtual walk down memory lane. You can still see that album on our Facebook page. Eighteen of the images are from a Corning parade, and two are missing dates because we couldn’t confirm when the pictures were taken. Of the 150 remaining images, we thought you might enjoy seeing the top 5 ‘liked’ photos. In order of popularity, here they are.

1958 (64)1958

This image got the most attention. Since we posted photographs in chronological order, it was also the oldest confirmed photo in the album. It was taken in 1958, and shows a crowd of people surrounding a horse drawn sleigh in front of Iszard’s Department store. Best guess is it was the end of that year’s parade. On the sleigh, Santa is joined by two official-looking men wearing winter coats. Most of the crowd are wearing coats and hats and many women are wearing scarves on their heads. One observer commented he remembered watching Santa get off the train and climb down for the parade. Others remembered shopping on crowded streets. While a few remembered specific food they ate at Iszard’s. Cream cheese and olive sandwiches anyone?

Second in popularity was this crowd scene from 1966. Here the image includes mostly children intently watching something just out of the picture frame. A few children are waving. One observer recognized himself in the crowd. It must have been warmer that year, because fewer people are wearing hats and there are no winter boots in sight.

The third photograph was also taken in 1966. You can see a group of Southside High School baton twirlers high-stepping down the street followed closely by a marching band. Onlookers line the side of the street, and a partial view of the viaduct span can be seen. One observer recognized her mother performing with a baton.

The fourth photograph was also from 1966. It shows two men dressed in Batman and Robin costumes astride motorcycles. They both look off to the side at something out of the photograph’s frame, and have their feet on the ground, indicating they are paused. A crowd of children and adults watch. While no one left any comments on this image, it clearly sparked nostalgia.

The fifth most popular photograph was taken in 1969. The image shows two young women carrying a banner for Southside’s High School Band which follows behind. Behind the banner are two processional flags. Both sides of the street are lined with onlookers. Commenters on this image recognized themselves or other band members.

Winter holidays often inspire us to look back at the past, whether fifty years ago, twenty-five years ago or the year about to pass. We hope you enjoy seeing these again. Whatever traditions you celebrate, we hope you share them with friends and family, and maybe a cream cheese and olive sandwich on the side.

Play On!

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Today July 6^th, the Museum and Booth Library are opening doors after more than one hundred days of closure due to the COVID19 pandemic. To protect our visitors and staff, we’ve adapted safety rules and best practices. We’ve installed new exhibits and are eager to see visitors, members, volunteers and researchers drop by again. If you have questions, we’ve posted expectations near our entryway, and on our website or you can call us at 607-734-4167.

Chamber of Commerce Parade, July 4, 1919

One hundred days feels like a long time and being in the middle of something, it’s hard to get any perspective on a bigger picture. We just don’t know when our pandemic situation will change. With the advantage of time, and a 21^st century lens, looking back at history can give us a different perspective.

Travel back to Elmira in 1920 by first looking at the front page of the Elmira Star-Gazette for July 6^th.

 The page is full of articles on the upcoming presidential election in November. There’s no mention of the global trauma of World War I which had claimed 16 million lives. There’s also no mention of the recent chaos of the flu pandemic of 1918. It had lasted fifteen months and caused 50 million deaths worldwide. It’s easy to think that the past was a rosier time, but in fact in the 1920s, the US was experiencing upheaval. There were meat packing and steel industry labor strikes, huge and terrifying race riots, an economic depression, conflicts over prohibition, disagreements about nationalism and waves of anti-immigration.

The 1920s experienced a lot of change. Increasing industrialization brought down prices on radios, automobiles, and telephones, items once only available to the well-to-do. Each, in different ways, changed people’s ability to connect with the world around them. As a city, Elmira was experiencing prosperity. In 1920, the county’s population was 65,000. Today, that number hovers around 83,000 people. 1920 was the year the Mark Twain Hotel, the Steel (Carnegie) Memorial Library, and the Keeney Theater buildings opened their doors. 


The newspaper articles are all about the future. On July 6^th, 1920, the City of Elmira and Chemung County celebrated in a way that one writer wrote: 

The event to celebrate the fourth of July, was a parade.


It’s hard to verify how large the parade was, or if it really was the, up to then, greatest of its kind in Elmira’s history. The article appears on page four of the paper and is five columns long. In a flourishing descriptive style, it mentions thousands of people attending and crowds up to five deep watching along the sidelines. Participating organizations represented military, history, civil service, and education. There were floats, marching bands, costumed performers and dancers. The parade stretched eight divisions long in addition to a finale, and hundreds of people participated. The parade is a sincere and earnest celebration of our national holiday. Unfortunately, the Historical Society has no picture of the ‘greatest’ parade.


We do have information on at least one of the bands that participated. Following just behind local dignitaries, Hager’s Band marched along playing “a catchy march as only Hager’s can give it.”

To learn more about Arnold Hager and his band, read our blogpost. To see him and his band, we’ve just installed an exhibit “The Band Played On” which we hope you will drop by to visit. In it, we tell the history of local musicians, composers and musical organizations in the area.


The “greatest” parade was not the only parade mentioned in that evening’s edition. Page thirteen lists another parade taking place in Elmira Heights the day before. It was held to observe both Independence Day and a War Memorial. It only received four and a half paragraphs of description. 


It might seem frivolous to look back at this kind of history. Like the article on the parade, our exhibits show different aspects of life in the past. Reflecting on history helps us pause and look at what’s going on today, and can be hopeful. Newspaper readers from one hundred years ago didn’t see the depression, looming WWII, Civil Rights struggle and cold war on the horizon. They celebrated that day with pomp and circumstance and were hopeful. History relies heavily on who tells it, it’s not always pretty or simple. Our exhibits offer you the chance to look at different people and events from Chemung County to find meaningful connections to your own story.

Iszard's Holiday Parade

by Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

In case you missed it, last Friday was Elmira’s annual holiday parade. The beloved community tradition began life as a crass marketing ploy. In 1957, the S.F. Iszard Company was looking to boost their pre-Christmas sales, and decided to borrow the idea behind the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For the next 31 years, Iszard’s hosted their annual holiday extravaganza on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Second Iszard's Holiday Parade, 1958

Preparation for the parade began months in advance and nearly every Iszard’s employee was involved in one way or another. Float construction began in the spring. The team from the display department would design and construct the floats at the company’s warehouse on Sullivan Street. Bill Warner, the display department manager, and Leonor Strauss, merchandise manager for ladies’ clothing, were in charge of selecting character costumes and recruiting staff and volunteers to wear them. Every parade had to feature recurring favorites like Santa, Santa’s elves, and popular cartoons like Mickey Mouse, but Warner and Strauss tried to keep it fresh, adding in new characters from the latest cartoon craze. New costumes and alterations were handled by the tailors and seamstresses of the clothing departments. 

Al Viele works on the story book float for the 1974 parade

 The day of the parade, staff would arrive hours in advance to get everyone into their costumes and in proper marching order. The whole procession was divided up into segments and, in turn, each one was overseen by a supervisor whose job it was to keep the whole thing flowing smoothly. The parade route varied from year to year, but the ending was always the same. Santa’s float at the tail end of the parade would stop at Iszard’s front door. Santa would dismount and take up his throne in the 4^th floor Christmas Court. During the late-1970s, they changed things up. Under the original system, children were so eager to visit Santa that they would often swarm him, packing themselves into his elevator, creating a safety hazard. Under the new system, the parade Santa would be helped down from his float and whisked into the Mark Twain Building where he could change back into his street clothes, while a second Santa would be waiting in the store to greet his adoring public.

Santa parade float, 1969

The Iszard’s Annual Holiday Parade was an instant success. An average of 15,000 people attended each year, lining the parade route and flocking to the store. Coupled with an extravagant Toyland display featuring a Christmas Court and giant Lionel model train set up, Iszard’s was the place to shop for Christmas in the Twin Tiers.

Start of the Iszard's Holiday Parade, 1973

The last Iszard’s parade was in 1988, but the tradition continued. In 1989, the Elmira Business Association took over as the parade’s sponsor. All of the old parade floats and supplies were transferred to the old LeValley McLeod building where volunteers could work on them.  Despite changing sponsor’s multiple times since 1988, the parade is still going strong. Community Bank N.A. is currently the parade’s lead corporate sponsor.